The current trend is that consumers are more health conscious and are looking for healthier beverages with less sugar and less fat and calories but without compromising the product taste and texture. In addition, consumers demand a healthier beverage, yet they are not willing to give up the original, indulgent mouthfeel they grew up with and remember, also denoted as richness, texture or creaminess, of the beverages. Thus, many RTD beverages are transitioning from high sugar and/or fat versions to versions with less sugar and/or fat to limit the calories in the beverage. However, sugar and/or fat reduction results in a thin, less pleasing mouthfeel of the beverages. Therefore, there is a need for a solution that improves and compensates the loss of mouthfeel in reduced sugar/fat RTD milk beverages to maintain the consumer preference.
It is critical not only to enhance texture/mouthfeel of RTD milk beverage but also have stable liquid beverages as is without compromising product stability over shelf life (at least 6 months at refrigeration for extended shelf life (ESL) products; and 7 months at refrigeration, 6 months at 20° C., 4 months at 30° C. and 2 months at 38° C. for aseptic products).
The present invention relates to stabilizing systems and composition of non-milk shelf-stable aseptically packaged liquid RTD milk beverages, and to the process of making thereof.